Hi everyone, this is Autism Toshiro Hitsugaya, or ASD Toshiro for short.

The subject I’ll be focusing on in this audio video is how unfair it is to get so close to finding a solution, only to have it snatched away. This section is about the unfairness of getting close to finding a solution to the lack of understanding from those around me, getting to know someone a little more, and my pain. I’ve been so close on each regard, only to have it snatched away by whatever means.

One of these moments was in 2013. It was actually during the wake of my late grandmother. A relative of mine came to visit, someone who doesn’t really know me, other than what my mother explained to him. He apparently worked helping people on the spectrum, but something rather odd happened when I met him. He has Tuberous Sclerosis, but something told me he has autism as well. Why? Well, from what my family told me, he had sustained injury during his birth and this can result in autism. I’ve found out through research that Tuberous Sclerosis has a risk of causing autism.

I found that he was the first person in my whole family, apart from my mother, who understood me. In fact, he understood me better in that short time than I ever expected him to. I was incredibly nervous about the wake and all the people around me, however; when this relative started to relate to what I was experiencing, I felt the icy hold of my anxiety start to slip. That is very unusual and never happens to me, certainly not without some time of getting to know them till I feel more comfortable.

Anyway, what I mean is that I wonder if he is also autistic as well. I don’t think his parents would agree, but I think he has.

What took me by total surprise was his confrontation with a relative of mine, who is around my age. A relative who has never understood me at all, no matter how many times I tried to explain it to her. This visiting relative counteracted this relative that has never understood me. It was epic, I wish you could have seen it. He was explaining about my autism and how it affects me. My other relative didn’t understand and kept going on about potential, her new favourite word. I was saying basically that there is a constant misconception about autism, people either think you have to be Kanner autistic or Einstein, but people like myself that fit between the two keep falling through the net. Which is what has happened with me. My distant relative agreed with me, but my other relative couldn’t think of a comeback, and just broke. It was so strange. It was like she was shattered before my eyes, broke into tears and stormed out of the house. I couldn’t believe it, someone was defending me from my hostile relative, and it was working.

Unfortunately, this relative had to move away again since he only came for a visit and lives far away. This, however; is a good proof that support from someone who’s autistic or very much like it, does exist, if you can find it. I felt exhilarated to see someone other than my mum fighting on my side, who could see the world and the people around me the way I did. It was so unusual as that never happens, certainly not to me. However; when he moved away again, I was back to square one. I found a solution, but it was unfairly taken away from me. This is a good proof of something I know will help me as it already has, if only briefly, but finding a permanent version is the difficulty I have.

Another experience I went through involves my Facebook friend. Well, I’ve already explained that one in a previous blog entry. Basically, she was starting to open up to me, towards the end of our friendship before everything turned sour because of her friendship with a bully of mine. I could notice her messages were starting to change, she started to open up to me about subjects she never talked to me before, like she began to trust me. I was so close to getting to the next stage of friendship, it felt like a door was beginning to open, like I was moving onto the next level in a video game, but it was cruelly snatched away from me. I couldn’t continue when she was accusing my autism for taking the bullying I’ve been through too seriously. It’s like the game crashed and I lost the saved game I worked so hard on, leaving me having to start from scratch, and I lost the game itself so I’ve had to find a replacement, >.<;.

Not only that, but I was inspired recently by a suggestion that sounded hopeful, it gave me an adrenaline rush, I felt this power I’ve never experienced before. I felt this intense energy burst, like I had a goal that was reachable and I needed to do whatever I could to make sure I could succeed. I felt so much strength and drive that gave me a boost. I was determined to get a task done, I was working hard at it. That’s when all of a sudden, I’m told, that they couldn’t fulfil that suggestion. I felt like I just received a 1000-ton weight on top of me, I just sank. I dropped down lower into depression than I was before. I was so hopeful, thinking that at last something really good would happen and I wanted to make an effort until I realized, “No, of course not, you’re fooling yourself to ever think you were going to succeed! You’ve got no hope! There’s no point anymore, everything just keeps crashing! One minute it’s there, and you know it would help, the next minute it’s all taken away from you.”

You know, as I’m experiencing these answers that come ever so close, but are taken away, I feel, is there someone up there playing tricks on me, giving me a taster of what will help, yet denying me the right to a permanent answer. I know what will help me, I’ve witnessed it myself, but getting a permanent solution it’s like reaching for the stars. You climb a mountain to get closer, you see it clearer, it’s brighter, but it’s leagues away. You can’t get there as it’s just too far out of reach. You can climb a mountain, but you need a spaceship in order to make the distance.

It’s cruel to face that answer and have it nabbed away before you’ve had the chance to feel it’s full effect. It really does feel like someone toying with me, messing me around, getting some kind of enjoyment out of watching me suffer. Why is it that the answer is too far out of reach? Why? Why can’t it permanent? Why can’t I find an answer that lasts? I need to find the answer to my goal, and I’ve been searching for so long, and I’ve faced trauma along the way. How much more do I have to endure until I find a permanent solution?

Anyway, that’s it for now, I wish it didn’t have to be ‘it’, I still need to find an answer. ‘That’s it for now’ is a poor choice of words, I guess I should say, “this is the end of the audio video or written blog, but the continuation to find answers, at least I hope I’m successful”. “I can only hope that some miracle will come down and make life feel worth living” my inner heart is telling me, …… “As if that’s ever going to happen. You’d have a better chance winning the lottery!” my critical inner mind tells me, -_-. The battleground between mind and heart. See what I mean? Inner turmoil, which isn’t helped if I’m treated badly by others as explained in my previous blog entry, ‘Abuse from ASD Forum’, :(. It fuels the feelings of worthlessness, like I don’t belong on this planet, like I was never meant to be born.

Hi everyone, this is Autism Toshiro Hitsugaya, or ASD Toshiro for short.

The subject I’ll be focusing on in this audio video is the abuse I’ve received from ASD online forums. Now, this is something I feel very strongly and angry about, and is evil targeting the most vulnerable through total lack of understanding and care. I wrote on forums in the past, and I’ve been hurt by them. In the private messages in a UK forum, I was told I was ‘childish’ because of my triggers involving an educational environment.

On one worldwide ASD forum, I can remember being told that the others on the forum were in a better position than myself. So, basically, trying to write on the forum, I’m not going to find others that can understand where I’m coming from? So, it’s hopeless? After that comment, I thought, what’s the point?

On another worldwide ASD forum, I wanted my mother to write on my behalf to try to find someone willing to write to me. I kept an eye on the responses until I saw very hurtful ones. They started to abuse my mother across the internet! So, no one is safe from the onslaught then, huh? I went onto the forum, and made my own response, and although it seemed to ease up a little, all of a sudden, a couple of people were accusing my mother saying that my writing was from her, imitating myself, >.<;. I felt very angry at that, I couldn’t sit by and watch her suffer at the hands of those brutal responses, I put my heart and soul into the lengthy response I made that spun 5 pages across Microsoft Word. I worked so hard on that, and they accuse me of being ‘fake’, of being a ‘troll’. To be insulted so badly by the autistic community on a forum, from being called ‘childish’, to being told I’m fake, like I don’t even exist. Like I didn’t get that type of treatment from school. It’s responses and moments like this when I wonder why I even bother writing on the internet at all, >:(. It makes me very angry. I try my best, I put everything I can into my writing and still no one understands nor cares, and on top of that, abuse me. Autistic people on a forum, a forum that is supposed to be ‘supportive’, abuse other autistics, it’s a joke. Only a sick one.

They were even implying that my mother needed to seek psychiatric help for helping me to find someone to write to from the forum. I was abused in private messages on an ASD forum before by a man in his 40’s calling me ‘childish’ due to my triggers involving an educational environment. I didn’t want to have to face that again, so I needed my mother for support, but instead they chose to accuse her!

It hurt me so badly to see them treat us both that way, it drove me near to the edge. It cut me so deeply to be abused by people I thought would understand where I’m coming from. That abuse, how evil can they be?!? This is coming from the autistic community? I don’t understand it. How can another autistic person abuse another? There’s something clearly wrong with this picture. They’re pinning autistic people against each other. It’s evil and abhorrent.

In fact, my response to that abuse, was the following:

‘I put my heart and soul out there, and I am constantly abused. To say that I am my mother, you have no idea how hurtful your words are, :(. I have put so much effort into writing online, and to face that type of abuse is abhorrent. I feel ashamed to think that there are those on the spectrum that enjoy to see another suffer because of their trauma and accusing them as if they don’t exist.

You nearly gave me a heart attack with that response. That was so hurtful, :(. My heart is beating nine to the dozen.

I’ve had enough of that from my school life, I don’t need that type of abuse now in my present circumstances, especially from the autistic community. This is exactly why I find it so difficult to write on the internet, to face abuse like this is sickening. I don’t understand how an autistic person can say such abusive comments to another. It’s absolutely beyond me.

I’m already feeling uneasy about writing on here, particularly facing abuse like that. I have PTSD, do you honestly think I need to hear comments like those ?!? I feel so, so angry right now. I feel like my soul is reaching out of my body and rising above my head, :(.

It is only my mother and I, she already told you our family was unlawfully and wrongly split apart. My mother is the only one that I can turn to in my family and trust. I live with my mother not my father, and soon after he found out I was on the spectrum, he didn’t come to see me anymore. I tried to send him a letter and a Christmas card I had made from my photographs, but he had moved without telling me his new address. He died a year or two later, and we only found out from one the relatives, and they told us he never received my letter or card. My sister ran away when I was 7 years old, not from my mother, but my father.’

It’s times like these I wonder why I even bother. What is the point when all I receive is hurtful responses that take no consideration to what I’ve written? I did the best I could. I put everything I can into what I write, but maybe that’s it, maybe putting my heart on the line leaves me vulnerable. I can’t help it; I need to be able to get across my feelings because otherwise how else would I be able to find people who’d want to write to me. Surely I have to be myself, no?

I wanted my mother to begin writing on the forum on my behalf because of the shear abuse I received before, but I wasn’t going stand by and watch as my mother was being abused across the internet before my eyes. How can they do that? It hurts me so much to cause us more suffering than we already have. What gives them the right to hurt us this way?!? Should I even continue, is there any point? Am I going to keep receiving that kind of abuse across the internet? I can’t take much more of this; it cuts me so deeply. I wish people knew and cared about the pain these people online are causing, or do they even care? I have to find someone willing to write to me, but do I have to be abused along the way? Why are they doing this to my mum and I? My mum is the only person I can trust to help me, and when she tries, she faces abuse as well! If you abuse my mother, you also abuse me as well since she is my support. How can it be right to abuse a mother trying to help support a son on the spectrum by helping me to find someone to write to? I’ve been on forums before, and I didn’t want to face that abuse again, but I didn’t realise they would turn that hostile towards my mother. They were like a pack of wolves striking upon anyone that was vulnerable, and my mother and I were prime targets!

What did they honestly think abuse like that would do to a person affected by ASD and PTSD?!? Do they want me to feel worthless, like life is hopeless, like I don’t have a hope in this hell of a life? Do they want to see me suffer? Do they want me to sink into deeper levels of depression? Do they enjoy torturing my mother and I? Do they get some sick pleasure out of it?

I still can’t get those hurtful words out of my mind, :(.

What gives them the right to treat us that way?

I’m sorry for that outburst, :(, but it just enrages me so much that there are those on the spectrum on forums out there that can cause so much abuse to others on the spectrum in vulnerable situations. I don’t see how I’m going to be writing on a forum, not when I receive that abuse, but where can I go? The internet is the only way I can cope with to socialise, and I’ve been hurt many times by it, is there nowhere that’s safe for someone struggling to socialise on the spectrum like me?

My whole sleeping pattern has gone upside-down again all due to that abuse. Meltdown during the night, went to sleep about midday, the following day, and got up the day after around 4:00am. I’ve at least skipped a day. It took me a while to get back into sync in order to get this done. You should have seen the meltdown that ensued after those evil comments. It felt like they couldn’t have cared less if I lived or died! Bullying at school is one thing, but from the autistic community on a supportive forum, what the hell is going on in this world?!?

Hi everyone, this is Autism Toshiro Hitsugaya, or ASD Toshiro for short.

The subject I’ll be focusing on in this audio video is possible causes of meltdowns. What has been annoying me for a while now is that I’ve more often seen on the internet the results of a meltdown, but I haven’t seen a focus on the possible causes. I can only relate from my own experiences, but my meltdowns are very meaningful. I do not go into meltdown mode for no reason whatsoever. They are not brought on by a whim, they are triggered. I do have reasons. These reasons come under some very real concerns of mine.

Now, when you think about it, we all have boiling points. Moments where we have reached our limit and enough is enough. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the spectrum or not, we all feel pressure, stress and frustration. Well, I feel that when you are on the spectrum that threshold is a lot lower, therefore we can get to our boiling point much more sooner. When you add PTSD into the autistic mix, you have a very powerful force. Why? Because PTSD involves trauma, and a reaction to triggers can bring back painful memories. Can you imagine the impact that has on my boiling point? PTSD involves pain, traumatic pain. In that respect, the idea that people on the spectrum show no emotion is proven to be absolutely false. Now, not only do I understand pain from my own experiences, upset and angry when I’m hurt, I feel lonely, but when it comes to meltdowns, what are they? They are huge emotional bursts of energy. That’s right, emotional bursts of energy. So, you can say that when you’re on the spectrum, you feel much more vividly. The emotions you get are much stronger. The reactions you have from the experiences you face are a lot more meaningful. In fact, when you’ve gone through trauma, it is a heck of a lot more meaningful.

But why do meltdowns happen?

Well, in my case it can be because of many reasons. One is when I have been badly hurt by an incident that happened to me, in whatever form. It can come from reacting to a trigger I’ve witnessed that brings back the painful memories of my past, and equally reminds me of my current predicament. I’ve also notice I have other triggers as well, the difficulties I have with travelling, especially to Japan and China spring to mind. Another cause of my meltdowns can come from noticing a clear distinction between my own abilities and those of my peer group. I can also find myself experiencing meltdowns because of a lack of understanding by those I’m interacting with or could effect me in some way, shape or form. From losing a good friend, causing me immense pain.

They are just some of the examples, and what do they all have in common? They are all tied to very real afflictions. They are all very painful and difficult to cope with. They are also beyond my control. I cannot prevent my meltdowns if they are tied to experiences like the ones I’ve mentioned because they are all connected to feelings, and they are all painful. The greater the pain, the greater the meltdown. When you look at it that way, meltdowns are the physical ways our bodies are telling ourselves and others just how upset we feel. We want both ourselves and others to know just how painful it really is. We want to find answers to rectify the pains we are going through, and not just to ignore them, hoping the meltdowns will just go away. Meltdowns are warnings of how upset we feel. I feel, you shouldn’t ignore the reasons for a meltdown and simply find ways to control them. Think about why these meltdowns are happening. The autistic person must be suffering from anything from loud noisy environments to the social difficulties they are facing in the outside world.

The cause of meltdowns needs to be dealt with for the meltdowns to decrease in both severity and quantity. For the autistic person to be in a safe, caring, and understanding environment where they are able to fulfil their dreams and live a satisfying life, that is when I feel their meltdowns may be practically non-existent, at least that is my belief.

I understand where you’re coming from. You, the cheese in the middle totally alone, with everyone joining hands around you. The alienation, seeing those around you joining hands, friends with one another, when you are totally alone in the centre. I can relate to that.

The cheese stands alone. I mean, the song in itself emphasises the alienation and isolation you’d feel at school. It’s no wonder I represent school as a prison, when the schools promote songs and actions like this. Not to mention the intensity of the sound of clapping reverberating through your senses, initiating overload.

To create a song that would end in isolating a child from the others, I couldn’t see how the teachers wouldn’t understand that, they should see children day in and day out. Surely in all that time they must have some inclination as to the harm they cause. For the teachers to agree with the other children, yes, I often wondered the same thing. To be honest, I really wouldn’t put it passed them. I can remember a time when I was 10 years old, stood up in front of the class and was humiliated by the teacher. In the same year, my mother went into the school and confronted the teacher. She told my mother that she would like to all of us children hung up on gibbets. To want us children to be tortured, hung on gibbets. What kind of a teacher would say such a thing? If she was allowed to become a teacher of children, it just goes to show you the standard on our educational system in the UK, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same for you in America. It reminds me of Pink Floyd’s song, Another Brick in the Wall, because with teachers like these, it’s not surprising.

Personally, considering the words of that teacher I mentioned about the hanging on gibbets, and the song and actions you’ve just written about, I wonder whether it’s a twisted way of guiding the kids to single each other out, to target one another. It sounds like this is what these ‘schools’ want us to become. To cut each other from empathy and understanding, and instead gang up on one another. In that respect, sounds like social reconstruction, manipulating and controlling the future generations to become uncaring and unfeeling.

I can remember similar activities such as duck duck go, you had to run around the outside of a circle and pick another person who then had to run around and tag someone else. In that respect, I didn’t even understand the concept, >.<;.

The intensity of the noise and the whole experience, yes, I completely understand. I myself faced some extremely annoying bullies that deliberately struck my sensory issues, before I even knew I was affected by it. Two of my bullies would shout these noises into my ears, and another would brush his hand over my hair. They made me sick, I was so infuriated with them, but of course, no matter how many times I told them to, “Get lost!”, they never did. They just enjoyed every minute of it, with arrogant grins strapped across their faces.

I understand what you mean about finding it difficult to fit in, and how it takes its toll on you. I could say the same. ‘To stay on your toes’, yes, I understand what you mean, and that’s what concerns me as well. The idea that I’d always have to keep trying to ‘be like them’ just to feel that I need to ‘fit in’. Personally, I want to find a way so that I don’t have to act differently, that I can be myself. I feel that you can’t truly feel comfortable in social interaction until you’re able to be yourself.

When it comes to politicians, the problem is that they are puppets, being controlled by darker forces above them. These puppets perform the tasks set to them by these puppeteers, the elites. These elites dictate what happens to us all. They’re actions affect us all. For example, they are targeting the vulnerable and disabled in this country so badly, meanwhile the elite profiteer off of our suffering. This does affect me because I know that I am misunderstood by this country and they won’t understand the invisible conditions I’m affected by. You cannot see the traumas and memory triggers I’ve been through on the surface, not unless I experience a meltdown, but if I do in public, they’d consider me to be hostile and may even arrest me. Why? It’s because this country doesn’t understand autism or the traumas we go through in life. Your experiences, like this Farmer in the Dell song, can be a trigger and remind you of the traumas of school life. For example, every time you are reminded of it, it just brings it all flooding back, and it’s like a switch is triggered inside of you and you snap. This is what I mean, -_-.

I understand what you mean about not wanting to interact with the ‘wrong people’, in other words, people that don’t understand where you’re coming from. I understand why you prefer to be alone. When you’d feel like you have to ‘fit in’ with all the going trends, you just want to pursue your own interests. However; as you’ve said, feeling alone would be lonely. This is why I have so much depression, I do feel so alone and that in turn makes me feel lonely. I don’t wish to cut myself off from others, I just wish to find the right people, but I just feel like I’m searching and searching forever. I saw a YouTube video recently, about someone saying the same words I feel myself. They were saying that they found it difficult to initiate conversation, and try to wait for someone to come to them to talk. As soon as I heard that it was like I was listening to my own words. This is the problem. I fear that the harder I find it to initiate conversation, the more detached I’d be from finding the right person, but I just find it so difficult, especially when I have no idea I would be welcomed and understood or not, >.<;.

Personally, I feel too alone, I don’t wish to be alone. I equally don’t want to write or talk to people that don’t understand where I’m coming from. The trouble is how do I know if someone truly understands or doesn’t if they are not being totally honest with me. Like my old Facebook friend, how was I to know that after she told me that she didn’t judge others on their disabilities that she would later come to blame my autism for taking the bullying I went through too seriously. These instances hurt me, but they only lead me to a greater emptiness inside. I wish to fill this emptiness, and I know the only way I can succeed is by finding a connection to someone that falls under the characteristics that I value. The understanding and acceptance of each other’s differences and difficulties and allowing us both to be ourselves around each other. These are important qualities to me, and what I need to find in another.

You make some very interesting points in this post, it’s an interesting perspective to read these experiences from school life and the affects they have. School can leave a long lasting scar, I’m very much scarred myself, so I can relate to how these alienation experiences can affect us.

I wish I had the conviction and resilience I get the impression of from your writing, you sound very strong, :).

Hi everyone, this is Autism Toshiro Hitsugaya, or ASD Toshiro for short. Just a quick reminder, I’ve added most of the links I mentioned beneath my previous upload on the bottom right of my banner image at the top of my channel. If you’re watching this on my WordPress blog, then the links are on the menu on the right hand side.

The subject I’ll be focusing on in this audio video is tangents. This is a difficulty I’ve been having in the social world. Mainly in terms of writing, but can be from verbal communication as well. I have this problem when I start to respond to someone. Tangents are moments where I start to expand further and further into additional subjects, that slowly start to seem unrelated to the original statements.

There are times when I feel that I have to break off into tangents as I’m trying to relate their experiences with my own, but sometimes I feel that maybe I went a little over the top. I can’t help it. I just feel a need to express myself, my worry is, do others feel I’m expressing myself too much, >.<;?

I’ve been noticing this a lot more lately, and it’s making me feel uneasy, :(. I worry that people are annoyed with me as there are times when I’m not sure whether I may be writing more than I should.

I have this cannon inside of me that is about ready to burst every time I hit against a subject matter I feel strongly about. Once the fuse line of this cannon strikes a strong subject for me, it triggers the lighting of the fuse. This fuse, combined with listening to music with my earphones, then strikes out powerfully. This is when I get this intense charge inside of me, and I end up writing like Speedy Gonzales, as my mother may refer me to, lol. This charge triggers a feeling inside of me that I feel I have to express myself in full.

I know I talk about school a lot, but that’s because it affected me so badly, it left me with triggers and my PTSD. You see, the need to express myself in full originates from my early school life. This is especially true after those emotional traumas I went through in primary and secondary school. I felt I was misunderstood. After being tricked, and eventually called a ‘creep’ by someone in my peer group, to missing out on a chance to really get to know someone, it enhanced those worries. Being misunderstood is also the feeling I get from my extended family which equally doesn’t help. You combine all of that, and you get a highly charged tangent writing, needing to express and expand on my writing and talking individual.

I feel a need to express myself in full, and this is a feeling shared by my mother as well. She also often finds that she needs to express our story in full in very complex and lengthy writing. I’ve often wondered whether others have found it difficult to respond to her, not only because it hits some very hard areas that really show the system up for what it is, but also because they find it difficult to churn so much information. I totally understand where she’s coming from in that regard, the need to express yourself in case of being misunderstood.

There is another very important point to make about all this. That is that I have had experiences writing on forums as well. These experiences have increased that caution to a greater extent. What I am relating to here is triggers. You see, I’ve said this before, but my triggers can be very damaging and involve education and emotional issues. This can be especially distressing and debilitating as these are subjects that may be written, spoken about or observed many times. Add these triggers to my autism and you have one heck of a combination. The need to express myself in full and travel into tangents, and that relates to my own experiences especially, is that I do not wish to be hurt. My triggers cause me pain, and if I receive a response that takes my triggers lightly. For example, if I receive a message such as, I’ve been able to go to college and university and I’ve done alright, or I’m lucky that I’ve found someone special, well, it’s like I’ve just been given the rope to hang myself. You can never tell when you’ll find and read a message like that. It hits me so hard, like you wouldn’t believe. The intensity of my inward spiral into greater meltdown and depression gets worse and worse the more I experience subjects that hit too close to the mark. I wish you understood just how excruciatingly awkward and almost impossible it is for me to socialise, -_-.

My tangents are my ways of expressing myself in the only way I know how, expand on my own personal experiences and the traumas they’ve caused me. This way I’d hope that it can avoid those painful triggers and I can communicate a lot more smoothly without the concern of feeling misunderstood.

My tangents are also my ways of expressing my interests, like for example, I can have some varied interests. I’m a photographer, nature photographer to be precise, so I’m going to have an interest in photography. I have an interest in birds and other wildlife around the garden since I became interested in photography and started to take photos of them. I have several books that relate to different birds that I may find around the garden; I get excited and often check back to the books every time I see new species I’ve never seen before. I’ve begun to have an interest in gardening after noticing all the colours, shapes and combinations of the flowers and plants around me as I’ve been taking photos of them. I’m often checking the garden to see how everything’s growing, and if I can find any unusual wildflowers that I’d want to add to my collection that I can capture on camera. Herb Robert is a good example as the plant’s new shoots have these interesting red branches that extend to these green leaves, which reminds me of Japanese maple trees. Not to mention, the flower buds look almost alien, and when they flower, they blossom into these really vibrant little raspberry ripple-like pink corncockle flowers.

Another good example of a subject I can talk very in-depth about relates to my interest in the orient, well, China and Japan to be precise. You see, I’ve played the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors video games series in the past, and little did I know at the time, it has relevance to Chinese and Japanese history. Now, before I knew it, as I begun playing the games, my knowledge was filling with all that information. Since then, I became aware of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era of China and the Sengoku period of Japan. Now, for some reason I can recall the Romance of the Three Kingdoms a little better than the Sengoku. I think that was because there were more games in the Dynasty Warriors series than the Samurai Warriors as each one would focus on a different country’s history. You see, as I became aware of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Sengoku, I began wanting to research further into them, and I started reading some books on the Sengoku period of Japan. However; I noticed there was this two-part novel about Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I discovered it was a famous historical Chinese novel that originally spun many, many more pages, but they had to condense it during translation into a two-part novel. I couldn’t believe it, as soon as I picked up the books and started reading, it was like I was aware of what happened before I even read it. Okay, so understandably there were moments in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms book and Japanese history books that contained information that the game didn’t cover. It was, however; close enough to feel strange. I could relate to the story as I was reading it. I was also desperate to go to watch the film Red Cliff in the cinema when it came out in 2008. Red Cliff is basically a famous battle during the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in Chinese it’s called Chi Bi. What it relates to is a naval battle. This naval battle took place around 208AD. The battle consisted of an overwhelming fleet led by a power-hungry Cao Cao against the combined smaller forces of a kind and benevolent Liu Bei, and Sun Quan. During this battle, a famous strategist of Liu Bei’s, Zhuge Liang could foresee the change in direction of the winds. Zhuge Liang, along with Sun Quan’s strategist of the time, Zhou Yu comprised a fire attack plan. A member of Sun Quan’s forces, Huang Gai, would travel across the water on a boat that would be set on fire, they’d jump ship and the hope was that Cao Cao’s fleet would go up in flames. It was successful.

Well, I better not go into greater detail than that, >.<, but that explains one good example of tangents consisting my interests, be they specialist or general depending on my level of interest.

Again, these tangents involve wanting to express myself, but to a different degree. This is not out of a fear of being misunderstood, but of excitement and losing the ability to control myself as I just begin my onslaught of heavy explanation. I can remember a time when I put my uncle to sleep talking to him about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It’s alright for him, he doesn’t understand what it’s like to find out all this information and have no one to express it to. I can also remember the face of another relative when I told it to him, and the look on his face. It still makes me laugh now, that astonishment and surprise, it was like it was straight out of a textbook, lol.

Anyway, these are two examples of tangents and how they make socialising difficult, either because of triggers, misunderstandings and pain, or due to excitement and wanting to talk about my interests.

I read a blog recently: http://bit.ly/2d10OkU, and wanted to make a comment, but my comment was unfortunately cut short by WordPress for some unknown reason. I wanted to be able to write my comment in full so I thought the best way I could think of is post it as a blog post, which I’ve pasted below:

I see where you’re coming from, I feel like an odd one out too in many ways. In terms of what a lot of people like around my age and their views on life, and notice how different I am in comparison. I don’t want to change my ways to fit in with them, I just want to find others that can understand where I’m coming from. To find people that make me feel like I truly belong. I want to express my thoughts, feelings, and views on life and the way it’s treating both myself and other people. I worry that I may be misunderstood, or that my views on life that I post on my Twitter account may scare some people away because I tend to post some heavy subjects about the atrocities happening around the world. I want to be able to express my views, but at the same time, I don’t want to scare people away, >.<;. I want to make friends, not cause friction, but I want to express myself. I feel I need to express my views as I want to be able to find like-minded people.

My PTSD affects me quite badly because it leaves me with triggers in the social and educational world. It makes it extremely difficult to socialise. I myself have been scared off many times because of reading something that immediately triggers bad memories, and I go through an intense battle inside my mind. My depression sinks deeper and deeper, my frustration of how time takes everything away, how the cruel twist of fate cuts me like a knife, the reminder of how behind I am to my peer group. It all triggers this overwhelming intensity inside of me. I end up having this debate with my mum over what happened, how intense my triggers are, my memories and experiences, my inner turmoil raging over, trying to make sense of what happened, realising how traumatic those experiences were, knowing how difficult it is to find the right answers.

Talking about insomnia, tell me about it. I, myself stayed awake for two days yesterday, and it ended with an interesting conversation with a couple of people on the spectrum across Twitter. Now, I’m awake, in the middle of night. My days and nights completely go upside-down almost all the time. It’s because of my depression and frustration. The need to find answers to my questions, the need to fulfil my dreams, the need to find like-minded people and make friends. This is what causes me my insomnia, and it’s difficult to get back on track. I have to stay up over the cause of the following day in order to go to sleep earlier and wake up at a more opportune time. It’s not easy, and the more depressed I feel, the worse it gets. As the season gets closer to winter, I start to notice how dark it is outside, and I often refer to myself as a vampire as my days and nights are completely upside-down. Truth is, my mind is constantly on the go, and I know that the moment I stop listening to my modern Japanese music, stop playing games, watching anime, etc., it all comes flooding back. My battleground puzzle mind, my mind and heart that are constantly conflicting with each other. I can’t go to sleep without reflecting on the differences between myself and others, knowing how alone I truly feel. There have been times when I’ve cried myself to sleep. I watched an episode of Naruto Shippuden a few weeks ago. This episode immediately caused my emotional trigger to go wild. I went through a pretty intensive meltdown. That’s when I just lay there on my bed, talking to myself about how much I needed to find my solution to this pain. I haven’t been able to watch another episode since then. That’s when the next day I badly needed to do something about it. I decided to create a website. I wanted to create a forum to connect with other people on the spectrum hoping to make friends. I created the forum, but I could tell, it was going nowhere, no one was joining, -_-. I wanted to reach out to more people, and that’s why I created a Twitter account, calling myself Toshiro Hitsugaya to relate to anime I like watching (Bleach). I wanted to reach out by tweeting about my views and about my autism, the way it affects me and what I can relate to.

When I found out I was on the autistic spectrum, I was 14 years old. I was going through my breakdown at school. At the time, I wasn’t on the internet. I wasn’t writing on Twitter, speaking on YouTube, writing on WordPress, or on forums, etc. I felt totally alienated and badly bullied at school. I was totally misunderstood, I couldn’t get on with anyone, but then I never instigated conversation. The only time I interjected in a conversation was when I was in Year 3, I was 7 years old. The other children sitting around the table were talking about where they’ve been on holiday. I said I couldn’t go on holiday, and the looks they gave me. Well, if looks could kill, they were good examples. Since that time I never tried to talk to anyone unless they spoke to me.

Throughout school I would wander the playground, totally to myself. I would reflect on my life, and look at the other children running backwards and forwards and I’d think, “Why are you doing that? Why are you wasting time running about when we could be talking about life?”. I then thought about the class I was in, could see the other children sitting with other children, talking to each other. I felt excluded, left out, like no one wanted to know. I didn’t understand. I remember those assemblies about singing positive hymns, and I felt them to be patronising. I also remember that song, “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands”, so if you didn’t as you felt misunderstood and depressed, there’s something wrong with you? There was a saying in these assemblies that I felt had a double meaning. The saying was, “Do onto others as you’d want to be done to yourself”. Now, I felt that those words sounded a little strange if applied to certain children. If I put those words to a bully of mine, I considered what those words meant to them. I felt that if those words were applied to them, were they trying to say, “I’ll hurt you because I want you to hurt me in return”. I didn’t, but I felt that saying was ridiculous. If you tried to tried a bully with kindness and politely, would they really reciprocate and do the same in return? No, they didn’t. I used to allow others in the class to borrow my stationary, even to bullies, I would give food in my lunchbox to others and open the doors to let others through to make friends, did it help me, did my bullies stop bullying me, did it help me to make friends? No, it didn’t. I also noticed the attempts the school tried to make to help children that felt alone make friends. You see, there was this bench in the middle of the playground. This bench was no ordinary bench. It was called a ‘buddy bench’, and it painted in bright rainbow colours. The idea was for other children to sit there if they felt lonely and other children would come up to make friends. I just took one look at the bench and laughed. I thought, “This is a magnet to bullies, like a moth to a lamp! Is this the best they can do?!? They have no idea what it’s like having to cope in this ‘prison’” (prison is the word I like to use to describe school as I find it fits very well considering how the strong would pick on the vulnerable). I remember I was once forced to sit on the bench by one of the teachers. All that happened was that I was asked to play a game called ‘bulldog’. All it considered of was running from one side of the playground to the other, and if you were tagged by the ‘bulldogs’ in the middle, you would be ‘it’, and have to be a ‘bulldog’ in the next running attempt. I participated in one running, but I felt it was useless and pointless. No one came up to me and started talking to me, no one wanted to know, they just wanted me to join a crowd of runners. What was the point, no one understood me, no one would want to listen to my thoughts, no one would be willing to be my friend.

For a long time, I felt totally alone, then at my mother’s suggestion, I started writing to a female I spoke incredibly briefly to in primary school. She agreed to write to me. I used to always smile every time I saw the number “1” written over the messages section of Facebook. I was expressing how I felt this candle light up inside of me every time I received another message from her. It lifted my spirits, if only briefly. Everything was going well, that was until I realised she was connected to the evils of my turbulent past. Before I knew it, I was back to square one, no further forward. I began writing on an ASD forum in the middle of that turbulence, hoping to find like-minded people, it was going well for some time, until I wrote to one of them on private messages, and I was called a ‘child’ in comparison to my messages on the forum. I experienced traumas involving an educational facility, and I was expressing how badly that had affected me and why those triggers would make the environment very hostile to me because of all the encircling memories in my mind. He didn’t understand what I was saying, and by being called a ‘child’, I found it abusive. He immediately triggered yet another meltdown. He was much older than me, in his forties when I was in my late teens.

My meltdowns are as a result of being misunderstood. My cousin is one very, very good example of someone that has never understood me and constantly causes me to meltdown. She’s only seen one side of me, not the side that the outside world does. She always says the opposite of everything I say, and her voice. Wow, I wish you could hear it, the arrogance is so noticeable. I was bullied enough at school to recognise the voice of an arrogant bully. I could always recognise that in my cousin. She would state such hurtful comments like, “I don’t think you have autism”. It was very stressful, but I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist and witnessed by a panel of psychologists, I have a document to prove it, and she didn’t think I was autistic. I’d like to see her live through my eyes, know what it’s like to feel excluded, alienated from others in the school. To see my sensory issues playing havoc with P.E. lessons (which I hated). We would wear shorts in primary school during P.E. lessons, and I would be so scared of other children’s bare legs touching my own, and I would always draw my legs in so that I could be careful. It made it very difficult to concentrate on the teacher’s words. Not to mention the abuse I would hear from the swimming teacher wasn’t going to help me feel a sudden reaction to swim across the pool. Shouting is not the solution, -_-. I couldn’t climb ropes or tell the time on a clock face, and all the time I was at primary school, no one could recognise my autism. It was only after my breakdown in Year 8 of secondary school when I was 13 years old that a SENs history teacher mentioned that she thought I was autistic and that was during a meeting. My cousin even said to me, “Let’s go to Japan”. I thought, “Sure, I’ll just grow a pair of wings and fly there right now, shall I ?!?”. I explained to her all of the difficulties I would have simply going to a crowded airport, the claustrophobic aeroplane, the constant worry about the safety of the plane. Then getting to Japan, getting off the plane into a completely different and alien environment, worrying constantly (“Will I be alright? What are we going to do? Where is the hotel? How can I sleep in an unfamiliar bed, touching alien sheets?”). That’s another very important point, my OCD and SPD would play havoc in a hotel. I’d need to bring my own sheets and pillow cases, I’d need to cover from head to toe, leaving no skin exposed. The whole environment would be far too hostile. Yes, I’d love to go to Japan, yes, I love the modern entertainment over there, yes, I know some of their history (Sengoku period, and when it comes to China, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era), I love their old architecture with the old temples, red gates and pagodas, I love their natural world, from the really old wisterias, cherry blossoms (sakura), maple trees, and ancient bonsai trees, but my difficulties make the whole experience of travelling to Japan feel like travelling to Mars, -_-;.

I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog post, that my anxiety is a tidal wave. It’s so true in so many ways. Writing on the internet felt the same as well. I can remember in the early days, in my mid teens, I would play MMORPGs, Massive Multiplayer Online Role Play Games, not to talk to other people, but to simply play the game. To feel what it was like to escape into my own world. The video gaming world. Video games were a big part of my life, video games were my escape coming back from a torturous day at school. Video games were my escape if only briefly. I tried all sorts of MMORPGs as I wanted to continually explore different worlds, different experiences, different dimensions that I escape into. However; I started noticing other people started to write to me on those MMORPGs. I was shocked to see someone was writing to me. I looked at the small sentence responses with their usual emoticons, and worried for a moment. What should I do, what do I say?!? I began to write a couple of words and smiley in response. Usually that was just it, but sometimes I found that it didn’t stop there. Sometimes they would continue writing. Sometimes I was slightly annoyed as I wanted to continue playing, yet other times I started to wonder. I would write a few words in response, and before I knew it. I was typing these small messages to people all around the world. Most of the time, we just wrote to each other about simpler things, like who likes what anime (Japanese animation) that sort of thing. On the occasion, I could remember writing to someone about what happened to their country in the past. All of these conversations were instigated by other people, and spun short little responses too and fro, and I never wrote to them again.

There was one unfortunate situation that happened a year or two ago that took on a completely different twist. I was writing to this one person on this MMORPG, and we wrote to each other for some time, and found out she was from the Netherlands (sometimes it’s so interesting writing to these people when they speak such good English. I wish I could understand and speak Japanese as efficiently as they can write in English), I even brought up my older blog and YouTube channel. She started to look at it, came back to me, and we continued writing. She asked if I was on Skype. I told her that I couldn’t cope with talking to someone face-to-face on Skype, this was especially true to someone I hardly knew at all, >.<;. I didn’t know much about Skype, I’d never used it much before, but she told me that she meant messenger in Skype. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but I eventually saw what she meant. At the time, I wanted to find out what would happen if I wrote to someone, as I never knew what it would be like to write to someone from these MMORPGs since I’d been playing them for so many years. We began writing to each other on Skype messenger, and across the MMORPG we were playing. It was going well for a while. Of course, I was cautious never to bring up anything that would link to my credential information, but I did express my experiences in life and told her I’m on the spectrum. What she was telling me about her own situation sounded so extreme, I didn’t quite know exactly how to respond, >.<;. Nevertheless, she told me that she’s played a lot of MMORPGs herself, eventually we went onto a different MMORPG, and played that briefly. She was talking to me about what games we liked, and she was talking about first person shooting games. I was expressing that I didn’t like those games because I felt it was senseless violence shooting each other. I told her how I liked games with a story that I could lose myself in. I tried one of these shooting games she mentioned, but I got bored very quickly and couldn’t understand the fascination, -_-. Anyway, we eventually went back to the original MMORPG. That’s when things slowly started to turn sour. I then began playing this MMORPG with two other people that this Skype person referred me to. We played in a four-character party. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. That was until something happened. Apparently one of the characters said something, well, not exactly said something, it was more a ‘whisper message’, to this person I was writing to. She immediately took offence by it, I was lost, I didn’t know what to. I tried to write to this person from Skype. That’s when this person from Skype said she was going to stop playing. She told me that I could continue playing. I said that I wouldn’t if she didn’t want me to. I wanted to do the right thing. I didn’t know what to do. I was lost, >.<. I keep asking her, “Are you sure?”, “I won’t if you don’t want me to”. She kept telling me, “Yes, continue playing. It’s alright. I just need a break”. I didn’t know what to do. In the end, I continued playing. Little did I know, it was the calm before the storm. As soon as I stopped playing, and wrote to her on Skype, she totally flipped. It was like I was writing to a completely different person. She was swearing at me, accusing me of not caring. I didn’t know what to do, I was apologising, asking what if there was something I could do to help. She was just telling me to virtually ‘get lost’, in different words, >.<;. I didn’t know what I did. She then changed her profile image to one of her swearing at the camera.

I was always worried about writing on Twitter, this was because I couldn’t face writing small abbreviated messages, I felt I would be misunderstood, and I wouldn’t have enough space to express myself. Then I started to notice other people on the spectrum were making blogs on WordPress, and I decided to reach out to my old and dusty WordPress account and restart. I then felt brave and wanted to write to someone on the spectrum on Twitter yesterday, and I was redirected to other people on the spectrum on WordPress that have their own blogs. It’s interesting to read how others on the spectrum feel. I want to be able to connect with these people and make new friends, :).

Hi everyone, I’ve decided to change my YouTube channel to a name that relates more to my new Twitter account. So, my alias now is Autism Toshiro Hitsugaya, or ASD Toshiro for short. I have attached several links beneath my video. The first link is to my Twitter account, the other is to my WordPress blog about Living on the Autistic Spectrum, the link after that is to my new social forum for those on the autistic spectrum looking to make friends. The last link is to my old YouTube channel AS Bushido.

I’ve not been on the ASD forum for a long while now, I’ve been busy trying to set up a new blog (https://livingwithas….wordpress.com/) and Twitter account (https://twitter.com/toshiroh9). I’m not all that fond of Twitter as I find it very difficult to condense my writing into tiny little sentences with abbreviations, which is why I’m using my blog to channel my larger pieces of writing alongside. Of course, I’m also going to be using this YouTube channel to post some of my written words into audio as well.

Self delusion, yes, this is an very interesting subject. The idea to ‘mask’ yourself to ‘fit in’, trying to be ‘normal’, ‘mimic’ neurotypicals. I have never understood any of those quotes, and I’ve never wanted to live by them. I am true to myself, I stay true to my values and principles. If my autism isn’t understood by those I’d be supposed to be ‘mimicking’, I wouldn’t want to be associated with them. What good is hypocritical people that say one thing one minute, and completely backtrack on every word they’ve spoken the next.

In fact, it takes me back to my first ever forum thread on the forum I’m reading this from. I’ve added a link through to the forum thread I’m referring to below this video. It’s called My Battleground Puzzle Mind. At the time I was friends with a neurotypical, writing to her on Facebook at the suggestion of my mother’s, a friend that I spoke very briefly to towards the end of primary school. I was in denial of the fact that she was friends with a bully of mine, a bully connected to an emotional bullying incident that cut me very deeply at my young and impressionable age. I saw her posting on Facebook about going on a trip with this bully and her brother. What I meant in the beginning of my forum thread was my mind and heart conflicting with each other in knowing what to do about the idea that my friend and this bully were friends. Since that time, for months, I put the idea to the back of my mind. That was a bad idea, but then I had no choice. I was alone, and I still am in many ways. I had to hold onto that friendship because what else could I do? I just began explaining to her the bullying I went through and how it affected me. She told me that bullies grow out of bullying, but I was expressing to her that it isn’t always the case, after all what about criminals and MPs? Do they care about people, or the damage they are causing to many people’s lives? No. However; I could tell that she couldn’t understand what I meant, -_-. Basically, it was earlier the following year that I found a following message on Facebook that my bully cooked my friend a meal. To me, this had many inclinations, and I just snapped. I felt this immeasurable intensity build up inside of me, much like the pinnacle of my breakdown at school. I needed to tell her about my bully, but I was so emotionally charged, I pinned the blame all on that one bully, when I reflected later, he wasn’t the only one in that class involved in that emotional bullying. Looking back on that class, I can reflect a lot was due to the fact that I switched classes to the last one in primary school. Someone I briefly spoke to from my class later on told me that she knew I was bullied, and she only saw me in that class for two years. How could she have known? The class must have been told before I switched classes that I was being bullied, which must have been the reason why I was so badly emotionally bullied on that very last primary school year. It left me with a scar, and a scar that lingered, off-shooting into additional emotional traumas.

Anyway, to get back onto the message that I sent my friend, I never received a response from her, instead she wrote to my mother and she was blaming my autism for taking it too seriously. I was shocked and taken aback by those words. She told me in her previous messages that she didn’t judge people on their disabilities, so what was she doing accusing my autism? Talk about betrayal. Since that time she never wrote to me again.

Our friendship spun one whole year, and ironically it was snowing at it’s entry and its departure. The gentle flurry becoming ice cold landing into my soul.

These are the types of people we should be ‘masking’ ourselves to ‘fit in’ with, trying to be like them, to ‘mimic’ these neurotypicals? You cannot be sure who is genuine and who isn’t and when you find that people are outright hypocrites, it can take us a very long time to even work that out. Too long as far as I’m concerned, -_-. Why try to ‘fit in’ with people that are deluding themselves into thinking the world is a bed of roses, when evidence has proven the contrary? Delusion can only lead to destruction in the long term. You can ignore an issue for only so long before it comes back to bite you where it causes the most severe damage. Be that in terms of social interaction or the country and worldwide issues.

At the loss of her friendship, I felt this sudden heart-wrenching pain inside of me, it was greater than the meltdown I experienced the first time I found out she was friends with my bully. I went through a much more intensive meltdown. This was because I was trying to hold myself, trying to explain my experiences to this friend in an attempt to try to show her the power of my bullies actions on me were. She couldn’t understand any of it, and the subject of emotional pain, especially when I found it so difficult to open up about at the time, telling a female friend felt like social suicide to me, -_-. This was all because I tried to control myself and express parts of what happened to me to my friend, but no matter how hard I tried, she still blamed my autism.

Self delusion didn’t help me with my Facebook friend, it only led me into further destruction. I want to find more like-minded people, not try to meld my mind to ‘fit in’ with others. I am not ashamed of my values and principles, I wish to pursue them and find others that feel the same.

I’m always aiming to be true to myself, even at the expense of losing that friend on Facebook. It took me a whole year to work out that she wasn’t true to herself, even her messages to me at that point completely changed. It was like I was talking to a completely different person. The truth is, and I’ve said this before in several places, is that too many people are wearing ‘masks’, when what lies beneath is something far more sinister. This is what has caused me so much trouble in the social world. What lies beneath each ‘mask’? Who truly cares, who truly understands, who would truly be interested in writing to me? These are all fundamental questions that I’ve tried so hard to find the answers to, and why should I have to spend so many years just to work out a simple fact? True or false, which is it?

This is what takes me right back to my emotional pain when I was 13. After I was bullied in primary school, when I was 10, I was called a ‘creep’. It hit me like a sledgehammer, and I died inside the moment that word was uttered. I couldn’t talk about it for many years, but the moment I turned 13, something totally unexpected happened. I was confronted by three females, one of whom told me one of them liked me. After that emotional bullying, I was going through so much pain, I didn’t know truth from fiction. I couldn’t tell if these females were teasing me or were genuine. l just dismissed them politely. I thought it was all a dream, and that it never happened. That was until I was cursed two more times later as I came into contact with the female that liked me on two separate occasions. Both of which surrounded immense anxiety and I couldn’t go up to her, nor express my thoughts as my anxiety was through the roof. The reasons why I look back and consider that she may have liked me is her reaction on those two occasions. The first time she was shocked to see me and made a mistake in her bank clerking job. The second time she was sitting a long way from me, and she was waving at me, smiling, whilst I had my back to her. I didn’t even notice her until I turned around.

True or false, how could I have known? How could I have known after I was emotionally bullied that someone truly liked me? I was bullied so much, I never even thought anything like that could ever happen to me. It did, but I totally missed it, and it has never left me. I used to constantly say, “You’re an idiot!”, every time I’m worried about emotional issues. Not to mention, I have immensely painful triggers on the subject of emotional feelings.

About confusing the mind, I’ve become all too aware that there are organisations running in this country and abroad that are doing just that, confusing the mind, sending out misinformation, confusing hypnotic language, not to mention the sheer amount of trolls across the social networking websites all designed to sway our thoughts and values.

When it comes to being true to yourself, unfortunately, there are too many people out there that believe that they have to ‘fit in’, yet you should know within yourself what is right and wrong, and not be influenced by the mass media culture, in whatever it’s forms. It doesn’t matter what the latest trend is, if it involves something that stands against what you know deep down is common sense and what is right. Allowing them to alter your thoughts and feelings turns you into a robotic zombie without a thought of your own. I do not wish to be a sheep led by shepherds, rather the outsider who knows that delving into the herd will lose your own identity. To the mass media and trends, not to mention the elite in general, see us all as numbers, purely statistics, rather than a human being with a voice. Be a voice, show people that you’re not a zombie, at least that is my aim. To prove that I am true to myself, to prove that I don’t live my life through falseness. I do not wish to conform to the status quo, I know I need to question it, analyse it, and work out what is truly going on.